Could Otis Foster ever hit a baseball.

He'd swat it so far it would sail beyond the fence, over the trees and hit a parking lot. Or he'd strike out on his first at-bat, swinging at a ball in the dirt, walk back to the dugout and tell his coach, "I got this.''

The next two trips to the plate? Two home runs.

These stories sound like folk tales. But they're true. You'll hear them often at High Point University, especially in and around Williard Stadium. There, Foster is familiar as the infield's red dirt. It's because of left field.

On the fence inside a big baseball is his name and jersey number.

Otis Foster, No. 18. His is the only name on the fence.

Five years ago, HPU retired Foster's number. He's the only High Point baseball player ever to get his number retired. He played three seasons for the Panthers from 1973-75, and during his three-year career, he collected nine school records.

That includes most career home runs. He hit 60.

Four decades later, all those records still stand.

Foster doesn't talk about it much.  Not even to his son, Britton, his only child and a baseball fan.

At 61, Foster would rather talk about his 2-year-old granddaughter, Cabria, his only grandchild, and how she always calls him "Paw Paw.'' He does love that little girl.

On June 7, a Sunday night, Foster became part of the inaugural class of HPU's Athletics Hall of Fame. He was one of eight, the only baseball player.

He slipped on his black church suit, brought his family to the Millis Center and walked toward the lectern amid a standing ovation after his name and accomplishments were announced.
This time, he had much to say.
 
"A small-town boy from the south side of High Point succeeded beyond his imagination,'' he told the crowd of 325 people. "It was a dream come true.''
 
Foster's Journey to High Point
For Foster, it started with a broomstick. He was no more than 8.

He played Wiffle ball in the backyard of his next-door neighbor. He and a boy named Bernard would pitch to one another, dreaming they were Willie Mays or Sandy Koufax.

Their ball was plastic; their bat was a broomstick. No bases. Just home runs and strikeouts. That's how they played.

He became the bat boy for the Southside Dodgers. By age 9, he started to play. He was a catcher in a wool pinstripe uniform. He thought he was on top of the world.

Like many kids in the 1960s, he played baseball every summer and remained a  catcher through high school. There, he caught the eye of Chuck Hartman, the coach of High Point College and the city's American Legion Team, Post 87.

Hartman thought Foster was too big to be behind the plate. But he liked how the ball jumped off his bat. Foster had some kind of bat speed. So, Hartman watched. Finally, before he left, he passed by Foster and told him to try out for his American Legion team.

"The catchers you have are better than me, and I won't make the team,'' Foster told him.

"Just come on out,'' Hartman responded. "I'll find a place for you.''

That chance conversation changed both their lives. Foster became the first black player Hartman ever coached, and Hartman moved Foster to first base, a position he played through college and the minor leagues.

For Foster, his relationship with his new coach was bigger than baseball.

Foster had strong male role models in his life: his Uncle Bunk, a night watchman who wore overalls and worked third shift; and his stepfather, Rufus Alexander, a blind man Foster called "Pop.''

Hartman was the third, a white man with a bushy brown moustache.

He saw something in Foster. He liked Foster's humble, easy-going personality, and he admired his talent. Foster was coachable. Hartman thought. Moreover, Hartman believed Foster's future was bright way beyond baseball.

"Keep your head on straight,'' Hartman told him. "You'll be alright.''

By the time Foster was a senior, colleges started calling. The coach from North Carolina A&T even dropped by his house every day for weeks one summer.  The frequency perturbed Foster's mom, Josephine Alexander.

"Tell that man don't come around here no more,'' she told her middle child, her only son. "Give him a break."

"Mom,'' her son said, "he's just doing his job.''

"You're going to High Point,'' she responded.
 
The Making of a Local Baseball Legend
When Foster arrived on campus, he sat the bench. He hated it.

He had never sat the bench before in his career, and like every freshman ballplayer, he had to do various menial tasks like carrying bats and smoothing the dirt in the infield.

But after the 10^th game, Hartman had some news for Foster: Go play first base.

Foster never left. He became a player known as "Big O,'' the sensational slugger who hit towering home runs. He hit 14 home runs his freshman year; 16 his sophomore year; and 30 his junior year.

After his junior year in 1975, Foster made several All-America teams, and the Boston Red Sox took him 15th in the first round. He left school with Hartman's blessing.

"You've done everything you can do at High Point,'' Hartman told him.

Three years later, Foster fulfilled a promise he made to his mother. He graduated from High Point with a degree in physical education.

Today, Foster's memories are still vivid of his time on campus.

He was the only black face on an all-white team. But he never felt any tinge of racism. The players became as close as brothers, living and traveling together and winning many more games than they lost.

The only time Foster felt his skin color was when High Point played a three-game stand at UNC Pembroke in 1975. Foster heard fans call him "Leroy'' and heard over the loud speaker "Dixie,'' the Confederates' Civil War theme song.

Foster felt singled out. Hartman told him not to worry.

"You go out there and beat them with your ability,'' Hartman said.

At his first at bat in the first game, Foster got beaned in the head right above his left eyebrow. He missed the rest of the game. He played Saturday and Sunday, and when the team arrived in
High Point, Foster's mother called.

She wanted him to come over.

She had heard the game on the radio, and when her son walked into the house wearing sunglasses, she told him to take them off. She saw the stitches, and she cried.

"They're trying to kill my baby,'' she said.

Foster still has a faint scar, two inches long, above his left eyebrow. He sees it as a visible reminder to a baseball memory. All his memories with High Point are good.

"High Point changed my entire life, it changed everything about me,'' Foster says today. "When I went to High Point, it was like somebody took me in. You were in a world within itself. You got an education and became a professional in every aspect of life. To me, High Point is the best thing since sliced bread. I say that all the time.

"And Coach Hartman? He was my soul, and he knew what kind of person I was. What I could and what I couldn't do as far as ball was concerned. He saw things I didn't see in myself. He believed in me.''

But Hartman wasn't the only one. The other players did, too. Foster's wife, Carlvena, sees that.

"One time at a baseball reunion, they took a group photo, and he was the only black person in the photo, and he came home and just cried,'' she says. "He said to me, I can't believe these people respect me and give me so much credit, you know?' He was moved by that, just that they thought so much of him.''

That happened again June 7, a Sunday night, inside the Millis Center.
 
The Need To Say Thank You
Coach Hartman sat at Table 28.

He's 80, his once bushy brown moustache now snowy white. He retired in 2006 after 26 seasons coaching baseball at Virginia Tech. He's a member of five halls of fame. But at the Millis Center, he came as an attendee.

He came to see Big O.

He remembers how his wife, Ellen, typed out Foster's Red Sox contract on her typewriter. He also remembers how Foster struck out against Guilford College and told him, "Coach, I got this.''

At his next two at-bats, he hit a home run.

Then there is the one about the skeptical baseball scout. The scout was sitting in the stands, and he told Hartman he didn't see Foster as a slugger.

"This kid doesn't have it,'' the scout told Hartman.

That game, Foster hit two more home runs.

Hartman laughed about those episodes Sunday. But he also listened.

His former player, now a 30-year employee for the city of High Point, stood behind the lectern, and in a voice barely above a whisper, he talked about the half-of-fame accolade he called momentous.

He thanked his family, his teammates and God. What he saved for last was obvious.

Coach Hartman.

"You're the man I hold responsible for my success,'' he said. "You are family to me. It's not just blood that flows through my veins. Love flows through my heart. It's for the love of baseball. But more importantly, it's for you. You got me into manhood.''
 
The HPU Athletic Life of Otis Foster
• Holds the all-time career record in RBIs (166), home runs (60) and slugging percentage (.837).
• Holds the single season record for batting average (.476), hits (78), runs (65), RBIs (76), home runs (30) and slugging percentage (1.116).
• Drafted by the Boston Red Sox drafted him in the first round. He went 15^th. No other HPU baseball player has been taken in the first round.
• Played played for five seasons in the Red Sox organization, making it as far the Triple A team in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
• Named to the Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.

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